Found a hook up on the Glory foam. Has anyone heard or know first hand if the foam is good?
What the Hell is a DL? Is that something like a DH?
Glory was bought by Ice 9 Foam Works.
Here’s a few links:
http://surfermag.com/features/onlineexclusives/iceninefoamworks/
From Glory to Gory. If you go with Ice 9 make sure you get the newest formula for the sugar blanks. The old stuff off gases and even goes into core melt with any heat build up.
I am in the process of accumulating some blanks for the upcoming Big Sur event.
Ice-Nine (along with several other blank companies) sent one of their blanks for the raffle as well as a half-blank to shape and sand onsite.
We won’t be able to glass it or see how it holds up but I’m hoping the winners of all the raffle blanks can give us an update as to how they worked out.
I am impressed with the mold quality of the Ice-Nine plugs… they look very much like a molded EPS blank with a smooth skin and very little flashing where the mold halves come together.
DL = Down Low (Current Information) Getto talk
Quote:
What the Hell is a DL? Is that something like a DH?
Ya cool, thanks for the links on that.
Sounds like a pretty neat idea. Sugar makes since, It crystallizes and gets crazy hard anyway… so it makes sense.
At any rate, I am planning on doing a couple retro fish shapes, quad probox’s and higher performance rails, and not
as thick as the classic twin fin models. I really like the 6’9" blank.
Maybe I’ll give them a try. I’ve worked with midget Australian foam, and it is great. Be interesting to compare.
The old stuff off gases and even goes into core melt with any heat build up.
Developing the foam has been quite the journey, to say the least. The out-gassing issue is actually separate from the heat issue.
The out-gassing was a product of the glue we (Ice-9) were using early on. The urethane glue out-gassed sulfur which caused delaminations on the deck above and adjacent to the stringer as well as left a yellow streak on the foam. The yellow streak, upon analysis, was found to not be the foam itself but was in fact a sulfur deposit left along the stringer as a by product of the out-gassing. Once we switched glues these particular problems went away.
As for the heat issues the sugar-based foam is a bit more sensitive to heat then traditional polyurethane foams. As such it is important to keep catalyst dosages at 1% or lower. It has also worked fine with epoxy as the heat generated by epoxy exotherms tend to be lower then with polyester. We have a written set of glassing and handling recommendations that have been developed that avoid the heat issues.
If you use FCS plugs then they need to be installed in two steps filling half the hole first and then giving it time to cool before filling the second half. (This is the same process FCS recommends for EPS installations.)
It is also important to keep acetone away from the blanks.
Love the name. Glory foam
I heard, or was advised about a slight yellowing due to stringer glue; but not any subsequent or consequent delam issues. I transported pristine white shiny blanks for 45 min, exposing them to sunlight. The outer skin which resembles styrofoam meat packing trays, turned yellow. I stored these blanks on high racks where heat is prevalent, an area where I promote off gassing of EPS, and seasoning composite skins.
After 3 weeks I checked the blanks; the smooth skin showed areas of surface bubbles from foam voids or bubbles below. I planed the surface skin revealing the voids. where they always there or did the heat tempering cause them...I dont know. But to start with the blank's surface skin was not immaculate, there were some mold voids on the rails and after further planing more internal voids 1/4 " + or - in groups of 5 or so, here and there. The consistency of the foam seemed quit course...not a very tight..like it would love to suck a couple of buckets, and with a slow cold cure...no doubt glass drainage would result.
I have three shaped, and am debating running a pre foamy bog ....then later a slow lam....or straight to the dumpster. Its tough to risk a couple hundred bux on a fiddy dollah blank. And bad PR goes a lot further than the good.
An FCS plug issue I heard about occured weeks after riding, where sunlight heated up black plugs and caused foam skrinkage at the perimeter and eventual lam cracks and subsequent water intrusion. If there are special considerations for dinky plugs...Whats the special op for boxes? Is that burried on the ICE 9 site somewhere.
AND Acetone.......That's THE sovlent in the poly process..that deserves a nuclear meltdown siren at the top of the web site as well as a stamp on each blank. But even so, onces its shaped and in the glassers hands, in a high production lamination environment, what distinguishes it from any other poly's schedule and requirements?. oops an other ICE9 meltdown, didn't make it to the solvent free lam room.
Peterg1,
Sorry for any trouble our blanks put you through. I will PM you separately to address this more completely.
The voids you describe would have been there when they left the factory. We have not sold any blanks in Hawaii yet so I am assuming we are referring to the sample blanks that were given out in Maui about a month ago. If this isn’t the case please correct me. I suspect that there were voids just below the shaped surface that expanded when the blank was heated in the storage area you described. The expansion would have puffed out the surface. If you peel back the puffed up top and look at the hole you would probably find it a bit shiny with a bit of a skin. These voids would have been there when the blank came out of the mold and not a product of out-gassing at a later date. Those are defects that shouldn’t have been there.
In the past month we have performed some upgrades on the pumps used to control the flow in the foam dispenser. This has allowed us to achieve much tighter cells, greater compression strength and a void free blank. I agree with your assessment that it’s not worth the money to glass those samples and that bad pr hurts WAY more then good pr helps. I would prefer to send over replacements with our latest iteration in foam and humbly ask you test those instead.
As for the acetone, the blanks sensitivity to acetone is the trade-off of using a sugar-based MDI formula. If a glassers gloves have acetone residue or the fin boxes or leash plugs have acetone residue then this can transfer to the blank and leave yellow stains or in cases where the acetone is in greater concentration it can actually melt the blank. Some glass shops have a practice of wiping down the blank with an acetone damp rag and this should never be done with the Cane formula. This colud lead to a waviness on the finished boards surface and foam collapse after the board is glassed.
The recommendations will be prominently posted on the website early this week. Thanks for pointing out that oversight on our part by not having posted them sooner.
tyrant- I was hoping you would address one of the most important things peterg1 brought up: “in a high production lamination environment, what distinguishes it from any other poly’s schedule and requirements?” What is your answer/solution for this? I know that the glassers I use don’t want to have to tell one pu blank’s special requirements from another’s regular requirements.
Howdy Steve,
The catalyst level we recommend doesn’t represent a change for many of the glass shops we’ve worked with. Some shops, however, tend to be a bit higher but not by much.
For most of our test boards we have had our glassing done at an extremely high volume shop in San Clemente. Other then test boards in which our foam was not right, their normal glassing schedules needed no modification. The one exception is that when using FCS plugs they pour the resin in two-steps and this is noted on the work order and except for this the boards took no longer to glass then the usual board going through this high volume shop.
When we expanded our testing to other shops we encountered a wide variety of catalyst mixes. Most people seem to shy away from having it go off too hot as they say it effects the quality of the glass job but even still some used percentages slightly higher (1% to 1.5%) then the 1% maximum we recommend and in these cases there was a higher risk of damaging the foam. (Some shops merely eye-balled the catalyst so it was hard to know what percentage their mixes were at.) When we understood what was happening we came up with the recommendations. For some they represent a change and for others that hasn’t been the case.
In the past 50 years polyurethane has advanced incredibly. Their are many more ingredients a formulator can use then were previously available that unlock a wide range of properties. With the closing of Clark the marketplace is now open to these possibilities. The ultimate goal is to provide the rider with “better” performance options (flex, density, hardness, life, etc.) and let their choices drive innovation. Some of these foams, like our Cane, will require some changes in the way foam is shaped and glassed. Just like a wood worker may need to change his technique and tools a bit depending on the wood. If a glass shop is adverse to making a change then our foam would not be the choice for them.
In the cases where the recommendations represent a change in the status quo, special instructions would have to be listed on the work order. This could be noted on the work order that travels with the board and is already checked by the glassers prior to starting to determine cloth, laminates, etc.
Regards,
LT
Just wondering if you recieved my reponse to your PM, and there was any follow through?
-Peter